


The Cavall Temptation

by journeycat



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/M, Infidelity, Multi, Sexual Content, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 06:27:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4776989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/journeycat/pseuds/journeycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Cavall family displays various forms of poor judgement and infidelity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cavall Temptation

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Peculiar Pairing Ficathon at Goldenlake in September 2010. Winner of Best Multi-Pairing category.

**I. Obsession**

He had a sweet smile that Eiralys loved, and she pretended it was for her instead of for the pretty lady with him. His wife, she thought, feeling that familiar pang. She remembered the way his hands felt on her skin: cool, impersonal, but healing all the same. 

“Your body is wonderful,” he once said approvingly. “It’s perfect for childbearing.”

Your children? she wanted to say hopefully, but she kept those thoughts to herself. He said things like that in false innocence; she knew there was a hidden meaning.

Baird pretended he didn’t notice her, but she knew he did.

\-----

**II. Rejection**

“That baby,” Jonathan said poisonously, “is most certainly not mine.”

She still didn’t look at him. The only movement was her hands, wringing in her lap. “She is,” she finally said. “I can tell, Jon.”

“I can’t believe that. You have a husband.”

Her eyes flashed. “A mother knows. And I refuse to sit here, listening to you deny her.”

She was halfway out the door when Jon called out to her, not wanting her to leave him behind so easily, burdened by the need to know.

“What did you name her?” he said.

Vivenne paused. “I named her Margarry.”

\-----

**III. Spite**

Sunarine liked all things delicate and pretty, because she herself was delicate and pretty. It was why she set her sights on the Lioness: not so delicate, not so pretty, but fascinating, with a violet loveliness.

But Alanna rebuffed her, firmly, with shock.

It was humiliating. Sunarine couldn’t bear it—she wanted revenge, but how could she possibly best the King’s Champion? It was silly, and most of all, it was petty.

And that, Sunarine reflected with a catlike curl of the lip, was how she ended up laying lengthwise against the naked body of the daughter of the Lioness. 

\-----

**IV. Betrayal**

“We can’t.”

“I know.”

Even as he murmured that last part against her mouth, his breath hot against hers, his hands were sliding up her legs, pushing her skirts up with them.

“It’s not fair to him,” she continued, but her hands were already tugging demandingly at his breeches, loosening the belt.

“He’s my friend,” he agreed. 

He slammed her against the door, and she briefly thought that they should actually go inside his rooms, but then his mouth was trailing down her neck to her bared breasts, and she forgot it entirely.

“Merric,” Margarry sighed, and closed her eyes.

\-----

**V. Cruelty**

Theirs was a whirlwind passion, something hot and frantic that didn’t revolve around love. With her, he tasted youth again, ripe beauty, and came back upon the virility he thought he had lost. With him, he thought she may have found something stable, substantial, nonpermanent but anchoring. She needed that.

But all good things must end—she began to harp upon him leaving his wife; he began to hate that cruel flower that blossomed in her. So he left.

The last he heard from Yolane was when she sent an invitation for her wedding to Belden. Wyldon did not attend.

\-----

 **VI. Secrecy**

He knew her by sight, if not by acquaintance—she was the daughter of one of his own pages, when he trained them all those years ago. She blessed him with sacred rose water, fingers cool on his brow and lips, as he knelt before her. Goddess, he prayed, although he didn’t say anything else. He didn’t have to, usually; the Mother knew his thoughts, and that was enough.

Duke Gareth hadn’t lain with a priestess since Eleni; it felt strange and yet somehow normal to lay with Cathrea. He only hoped this union didn’t result in a child, too.


End file.
